


Bluish Purple

by egnirys



Series: egnirys' Post-OoT AU: PTSD enby Link & child [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Genre: Gen, Link (Legend of Zelda) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Link (Legend of Zelda) Needs a Hug, Link (Legend of Zelda) has a child, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Link (Legend of Zelda), Post-Ocarina of Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:13:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egnirys/pseuds/egnirys
Summary: A much more wholesome follow-up to Fairy Terrarium.
Series: egnirys' Post-OoT AU: PTSD enby Link & child [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022677





	Bluish Purple

Even when I was really little, I noticed my dad wasn’t all there. Like he was there physically, but his mind was... somewhere else. A distant and sorrowful place. A place where not even my mom or I could follow him. And when I asked him about it, he told me he’d tell me someday. When I was older. And not to repeat it to mom, because she wouldn’t understand. And then one day he told me.  
I was furious at the universe for doing that to him. For making him sacrifice so much and making it so no one could even remember. But he told me it was better that way.   
“Don’t you feel alone? That you can’t talk to anyone about it?” I asked.  
“Wouldn’t be able to anyway,” he said with a shrug.  
“Why not?”  
“When you’re talking to someone about things they don’t understand, it’s like... they’ve already made up their mind, trying to imagine what they think it’s like. So even if you tell them what it’s actually like, they’re not really listening.”  
“Weird.” But I didn’t know what to say, since he was probably right.  
So, like, growing up with him as my dad sometimes felt like living with a cloud of darkness. Something sad and mysterious that you can’t see through and it can’t even tell you why. But sometimes there were flickers of light, glimpses into what he must have been like before the trauma set in. Sudden bursts of sunny joy and a wild imagination and curiosity.  
Usually it had something to do with nature, animals, or music. He loved sharing songs with me. And teaching me to take care of the horses. And every so often he’d recount a rare positive memory, like a cooking disaster or an injury that you’d think would be upsetting, but was just so out there that you couldn’t help but laugh.  
But he could never really talk about the weird things that happened to him. So then when something weird happened to me, and I wanted to talk to him about it, I was hesitant.  
“Dad, can I tell you something weird?”  
"Of course.” He didn’t even think twice about it.  
“Um, really?”  
“Why wouldn’t I listen to something you had to say?” he asked.  
“Because of, uh, that thing you said about how people already have their minds made up about what certain stuff is like, and they’re not going to listen to how it really is?”  
“Try me.” He crossed his arms at me, almost smirking a little, like he was challenging me to come at him with something he couldn’t handle. Like he was eager to prove just how accepting he could be about anything. To reassure himself he could be a great parent, even if he wasn’t all there a lot.  
So I came at him with it, pretty bluntly.  
“Um. Well. How to put this. I don’t... I don’t feel like I’m a boy.”  
“Hmm?”  
“I mean, how I always liked stuff people say is girly, like having long hair, and doing it with accessories and stuff. And playing with dolls. And other stuff where people are like, that’s not what boys do. And part of me is like, well, yeah, boys can do anything they want, and still be boys. But the other part of me is like, maybe I in particular don’t exactly... connect with boyhood? Like sometimes I don’t care whether I’m a boy or not. But sometimes I really, really don’t want to be a boy. So maybe on the inside I’m, like... not a boy.”  
“So... you’re a girl?”  
“No, I’m not a girl either. I don’t, uh, connect with boyhood that much, but I don’t connect with girlhood either. Like I guess if girl is pink and boy is blue then I’m kind of bluish purple. Like not totally halfway in between, but definitely not one or the other.” I paused, shuffling my feet.  
“So, like, if you don’t mind, could you not call me your son? And instead I guess I’m just your... kid? Child? And not he either. But not she. They. They is nice. They, them, their?”  
His eyes were wide. And he wasn’t responding. And for a second, I was like, crap, I’ve done it. I’ve come to my dad with something he doesn’t understand, and now I alienated myself from him. Like I was the last person he trusted with telling stuff to, and just like that, gone.  
But then he kind of wrinkled his brow and then nodded.  
“I... I can understand the bluish purple thing,” he said, though he was biting down on his lower lip. “You're a smart kid and good at explaining things. And if you want to use gender neutral pronouns, I'll definitely respect that. Do you want to change your name?”  
“No, not really?” Now I wrinkled my brow. “I mean, maybe, but I haven't thought of a good new one yet. If you get any good ideas, let me know.”  
“I will. Do you need a hug?”  
“That'd be nice.”  
And he gave me a hug. It felt good, even though he was kind of stiff, like he was still confused, and I could feel that in how he carried himself. But I understood that. I was confused with myself when I first started feeling it. It takes time to get used to these things.  
And he was good about it. He started using gender neutral pronouns for me, slipping up a few times, but always correcting himself and apologizing immediately after. About a week after I'd told him, he kind of checked in with me about it, too.  
“Is everything all right with you?” he asked me, at first seemingly out of nowhere. But his communication was always... off, like everything else with him was. “I mean, about how people are treating you in regards to you being... bluish purple.”  
“It's been fine?” I said, like a question. “I mean, some people will talk crap, but those are just the stupid people that made up their minds wrong already and don’t listen. The kind of people where you’d tell them what happened to you was tragic, and they’d still just think it was cool.” I paused, and shrugged. “You know. That kind.”  
“Of course there are always those.” He nodded. “If you need to vent to me about anything, you can, all right?”  
“Yeah. I'm fine.”  
And then it was a couple more weeks before he brought it up again. But this time... it was something I didn't expect.  
“Can I tell you something weird?” he asked me this time.  
“Yeah?” I sat down next to him to hear him out.  
“The thing you're doing. The bluish purple thing. Do you... think I can do that?” He squirmed where he sat. “If I said I didn’t feel like a man all the time, you’d think it made sense? That sometimes I feel like I’m female, just... masculine about it. And sometimes I feel like I really am male, just... feminine about it. Like you said... bluish purple?”  
Now my eyes were wide and I was the one spending a moment being stuck silent.  
“Dad—should I call you something else—you feel bluish purple?”  
“You can still call me dad, I guess. What else is there? But yeah, I always felt like that, I just assumed it was me being weird. I didn’t know it was a thing other people felt. So, like everything else, I didn’t tell anyone.” He swallowed hard. “But I can tell you.”  
“You can tell me,” I said. “And I can tell you.”  
And then he—no, they—lit up like they did sometimes. But brighter than I’d ever seen yet. For a moment the cloud of darkness in their eyes was gone, replaced by a stunning gleaming light. And they came in for a hug, which I was more than happy to give them.  
“You’re a good d—parent,” I told them. “Guardian. Caregiver. Child creator. Human spawner.”  
“Some of those are strange.”  
“Yeah, but we can make it fair. I can be... the spawn. Offspring. Fruit of your essence. Little pain in the butt.”  
They laughed. It wasn’t like them, but I was glad to see it.  
And somehow, the glimmer of light I saw in them that day managed to stay there. Like, the rest of their dark emotional clouds were still present, most of the time, but there was one less. I mean, in front of other people, even mom, they were still a he, still my dad. I guessed they weren’t ready to try to explain it to anyone else yet. But it definitely felt like their gender had been one of their dark clouds, one I’d successfully blown away by showing them the light of how things could really be.  
Now maybe they’d get less pissed at me next time I had to tell them something else I did. Like breaking a pot or something. But something told me they wouldn’t have issues with that either.


End file.
